Gardner combats extraordinary suicide rate

Illicit drug use, alcohol abuse and unemployment all play a role in Gardner’s high suicide rate, but steps are being taken to try to deal with the problem.

Gardner had 28 suicides, or 13.5 per 100,000 people, from 2000 to 2009, according to the state Department of Public Health. The rate was about twice as high as the state rate during that time span.

Jon Marcinkiewicz, manager of the mental health unit at Heywood Hospital in Gardner, said one challenge for reducing the Greater Gardner area’s high suicide rate is the geographic isolation of some people in the area. It makes it difficult for people to get themselves to the doorstep of counseling or therapy sessions, he said.

The bus system doesn’t reach the outskirts of Gardner or surrounding towns, he said.

A person in need of services would likely have to wait six to eight weeks, excepting a trip to the emergency room, Mr. Marcinkiewicz added.

In an effort to help, the state Commission of Higher Education recently granted about $74,000 to Mount Wachusett Community College to train Heywood Hospital’s 730 health care workers in suicide prevention techniques.

The school will develop a training portal for hospital employees to use.

The college’s Web-training in suicide prevention will be made available to hospital medical staff and volunteers who might not have the time for face-to-face training, said Barbara Nealon, the hospital’s director of social services.

The hospital already has eight employees who can do QPR (Question, Persuade, and Refer) training, Ms. Nealon said.

Many members of the community and area public schools take part in the training. It involves the three steps that the average person can learn to help save a life.

People trained in QPR learn how to recognize the warning signs of a suicide crisis and how to question, persuade, and refer someone to help, according to the QPR Institute in Washington.

It receives assistance from the state Department of Public Health’s Suicide Prevention Program.

Meeting the first Monday of each month in the hospital cafeteria, the task force works with the district attorney’s office and state police to try to obtain information that is more current than the 3-year-old state rates, said Ms. Nealon. She noted there were three suicide deaths in the Gardner area during April.

With the current information, the task force can provide education to the community to effect change immediately, Ms. Nealon said.

Two years ago, the hospital put together a suicide survivor support group. It had been meeting once a month but now meets twice monthly, she said.

A version of QPR suicide prevention training will be taught to area bartenders, barbers and beauticians because these people tend to have relationships with their customers and might be able to pick up warnings signs and tell the customer help is available, Mr. Marcinkiewicz said.

The hospital will soon send out postcards to Gardner area homes listing the warning signs of suicide, the phone number of the national suicide prevention hotline and information about the task force’s work.

While suicide is a concern, it isn’t a statewide epidemic, according to Alan Holmlund, director of the DPH Suicide Prevention Program.

Massachusetts consistently has more than 500 suicide deaths per year, one of the lowest suicide rates in the country, he said.

But there is a concern because from 2003 to 2010 there was a 37 percent increase in suicide deaths in the state, Mr. Holmlund said.

Suicides are almost always the result of a combination of circumstances, such as diagnosed or undiagnosed mental illness, with depression highest on the list, he said.

“We do know that strategies such as what has been adopted in the Gardner area (bringing providers together with parts of the community who deal with people who have mental health issues) can make a significant impact,” Mr. Holmlund said.

Often, a youth suicide brings a community together, the state official said.

Yet suicides among middle-age men are the fasting growing group, accounting for most of the increase between 2003 and 2010, he said.

The stigma of suicide being sinful or taboo is beginning to change, he said. “I don’t think we’re there yet. I think families who suffer a suicide still struggle with whether or not to talk about it in public,” the state official said.